Not to be confused with Satan Is Good, which is distinguished by having the apparent bringer of evil be a covert force for good, whereas Anti Antichrists generally represent actual forces of evil.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

What Tatsumi Oga is trying to teach the eponymous baby Beelzebub to eventually become - often with hilarious results.

It helps that Beel doesn't seem to be inclined to ending the world. He's content to follow Oga around and act like a normal infant. Then again, he is an infant.

Rin from Blue Exorcist: He only learns his true parentage after Satan himself comes to claim him, killing the exorcist who was his foster-father – a priest and member of the local Church Militant – in the process. Determined to never be in that position again, Rin vows to become an exorcist himself in order to (in his own words) "KICK SATAN'S ASS!" Naturally he can't tell anyone at the exorcist academy about this, least of all his classmates (at least one of whom has devoted himself to killing Satan). Eventually, this gets out, but after some angst, his friends prove to be True Companions and it looks like he'll stay on the side of good.

His "headmaster", Mephisto, who is also his second eldest half-brother Samael, also arguably qualifies, as he likes humans and so wishes for them to continue onwards. Mostly because they are entertaining in his opinion.

Rin's younger twin brother Yukio is a aversion since he is human ...or so it was believed. And ever since he's started showing his power, he's also started showing some madness...

Ah! My Goddess's Goddess First Class Urd, Celestial SysAdmin and self-styled Goddess of Love, is understandably estranged from her mother Hild (the "CEO of Niflheim, Inc.", aka the ruler of Hell) at least in part out of fear that love for her would tip the balance in her soul.

The nature of the market-share war, as well as Urd's own priorities, might mean that she's thinking more of her love of her sisters than being a harbinger of doom. Even her childhood friend Mara (a full-blooded demon) laments that they're no longer able to actually be friends.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki centers around invoking this trope by raising the various possible "Anti-Christs" in a loving family environment. Well, a wacky loving family environment.

Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok: Loki, bringer of Ragnarok in Norse Mythology, doesn't want to. Interesting in that it isn't the "Devil" character who wants/expects him to do it, but the God, Odin. The massive psychological contortions of the other gods of Asgard as they argue simultaneously that the only way to stop Ragnarok is to kill Loki...but that You Can't Fight Fate in that he can't choose not to start it. He chooses not to regardless, which drives them nuts.

Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist. His father (actually called Father) is an Eldritch Abomination / sort of evil god, and Greed has fallen out with the old man. Because he is "greedy", Greed isn't interested in his father's plans, and because of his massive ego, wants to accumulate a large number of followers, unlike Father, who views humans as insects and wants to wipe them out. For Bonus points, Greed even gets a Crucified Hero Shot.

In one of the final chapters, we find out (after much pestering from Ling) that accumulating a large number of followers/ becoming the king of the world / taking Father's place and consuming God wasn't what Greed really wanted at all. In fact, Greed admitted that all he ever wanted was "to have friends like them".

In The World God Only Knows, it is ultimately revealed that the organizations Vintage and Satyr broke the Weiss' prison for the sole purpose of reviving a specific Old Demon, a creature whose power exceeds all others and who could bring about untold destruction if they chose. In the past, this being had killed millions, but was never allowed to say no or turn from their assigned task. when the prison was broken, Dokuro found this Weiss, erased her memories and for the first time gave her a normal life as the New Demon Elsea, who would play an instrumental role in stopping Satyr before finally wishing to Retcon reality to make herself Keima's legitimate sister.

Kaworu Nagisa of Neon Genesis Evangelion essentially embodies this trope, coming within about a foot of causing Third Impact before realizing what was going on and asking Shinji to kill him to prevent it. Possibly even more so in the manga where the sequence of events is slightly different. There's a reason why "he died for your sins".

For different reasons, Gendo Ikari might count too. Depending on your interpretation of A) his character and B) What the fuck is actually going on in the series.

Rei actually double subverts this. She's raised to end the world but decides not to after Gendo betrays her. Then she does it anyway because Shinji - who recently crossed the Despair Event Horizon - asks her to.

Depending on your point of view, you could see Shinji himself as this, particularly in the Rebuild series - His birth date contains an awful lot of sixes, and it is implied that he is the "chosen one" of an ancient apocalyptic prophecy. Abandoned by his conspiracy parents, he grew up to be a crippingly timid, but kind young boy who never meant anyone any harm, but his fragile mind was not prepared for whatthiscruelworldwouldsendhisway... chillingly, the Rebuild series reveals that even if he never had any intention of causing The End of the World as We Know It, or even went as far as actively striving to prevent it, the conspiring parties will make him. Cue one of the most devastating My God, What Have I Done? moments known to man...

Piccolo Junior from Dragon Ball was meant to carry on his father's legacy as Great Demon King, and take over the world. He's more interested in beating Goku in a fight, especially after their first encounter, going from major villain to jerkassantihero, and after spending one year raising Gohan, a rather likable nice guy. Interestingly, the French dub (and by extension all other dubs based on it) calls him The Younger Satan (his father was Satan the Heartless).

Note that Piccolo isn't just the son of the original, given the circumstances of his birth, he's also his father's reincarnation.

Goku fills the title well, too - he was sent as an infant to grow up and kill Earth's entire population so Frieza could sell the planet. But he hit his head, got amnesia and was raised with love and caring instead. Vegeta was understandably disappointed. That is what everyone believes, but truthfully he was sent to Earth by his parents to save him from Frieza. Given the Saiyans' nature, however, it's highly likely Goku would have still wipe the planet if certain factors haven't happened.

Demon lord Exoda C. Claw from Shina Dark is supposed to wage war on the entire world when he wakes up... Turns out fishing and goofing about are a lot higher on his list of priorities.

Hamel in Violinist of Hameln is Great Demon King's Chestra's son, heir and successor, and is constantly harassed by the demon captains who hope to trigger a permanent berserker state in him (during which his body mutates horribly and he's virtually unstoppable, tending to attack anything that moves in a blind rage). Hamel has a couple words to say about that, and they usually require heavy censoring; thus they keep attacking him and trying to turns humans against him. None of this would have been necessary had they kidnapped Pandora away from his sight, and offered him asylum from the bad bad humans afterwards, since he was just a freaking kid at the point. It turns out to be a Evil Plan to make him more powerful from the constant conflict between his human and inhuman sides... so he'd make a tastier, more nutritious snack to his cannibal father after the latter's eventual release from Pandora's Box.

Carrot in Sorcerer Hunters is the reincarnated soul of the God of Destruction. The Big Bad destroys his world, kills his friends and family and tells him to get to destroying. Cue his friends using their god powers to backwards reincarnate to return to him, the God of Destruction changing color and him saying....no.

Naruto, as host of the most powerful and evil of demons, is basically expected to be the Anti Christ (or the local equivalent). Instead, he's The Hero.

Turns out that the demon sealed in him isn't nearly as evil as advertised either.

In Pokémon Special, six young children were kidnapped by the Mask of Ice (Arc Villain for the GSC saga), "chosen" to become his servants. While four of them go on to loyally serve the Masked Man, the remaining two, Blue and Silver, would run away and, as they grow up, would oppose him when his plans come into fruition.

In YuYu Hakusho, Hiei was destined to return to his home village and destroy it, as he was the only male. When he finally got there to do just that, he decided against it for the sake of Screw Destiny.

Lucy from Elfen Lied has shades of this, more in the manga than the anime. She is the "queen" of the diclonius - the only fertile member of her race - and her power is unrivalled by any of her peers. Lucy, however, isn't particularly interested in being the head of a new race and she winds up playing a big role in destroying the diclonius race and preventing the destruction of humanity.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica has Madoka Kaname herself, destined to, no matter what wish she would make, to become a world-destroying Eldritch Abomination Witch bent on subjecting all to Euthanasia. Yet in the end, she made a wish to erase all Witches, including her own witch, at the cost of absorbing the despair with her own hands.

Izark from From Far Away. He's destined to become the Sky Demon and bring destruction to the world, but he's a genuinely nice person (albeit being cold at first) and with some help from his True Companions becomes a beacon of hope.

The title character of Hellboy. Whenever told by someone that he's destined to bring about the destruction of Earth and summon the Ogdru Jahad, he usually responds by punching them in the face. It ultimately costs him his life, but his sacrifice has given the human race a chance to actually survive the apocalypse.

Danny Wormwood from Garth Ennis' The Chronicles Of Wormwood is the Anti-Christ but has no interest in starting Armageddon, much to his father's chagrin, as it can't be started without him. He's even pals with Black Hobo Jesus.

Semi-used in Chosen, in which the Antichrist believes himself to be Jesus and wants to help people. Then his dad and a bunch of demons rape him for years and it turns him evil.

Marvel Comics has this character named Daimon Hellstrom, Son of Satan! And frankly, with a name that's just barely not "Demon Hellstorm", what do you expect?

Due to the nature of the Marvel Universe, A certain fallen angel named Lucifer (who may or may not be the real thing) was weakened and split into many fragments after landing on Earth. These fragments compete with each other and several arch demons like Mephisto for the title Satan. Each has their own hell dimension to boot. The many hell lords made a temporary truce, and spent a great amount of time devising a way to get all their genetic material into one human baby, so that he truly would be the undisputed son of Satan. On his birth satanic cults moved to make sure Daimon was evil, but despite both the genetics and the upbringing, he ended up being a hero! He later has a Face–Heel Turn and goes to simply being The Antichrist.

Oh all that super natural genetic modifying ended up being more successful than thought, as "Satan" had a daughter too!... or not as Satana (eventually) turned on her fathers and became a hero too. Yeah evil is stupid. She's still a bit mean (and a member of the Thunderbolts). To be fair, as Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal pointed out, fallen angels are still angels. Evil isn't something they're really designed for, and falling isn't something they're "born" doing.

Inverted or perhaps subverted by Loki in Earth X. After the reveal that Gods Need Prayer Badly because they're really shapeshifting aliens, and Odin is a human who's enslaved them, Loki decides to bring about Ragnarok — because it's the right thing to do.

Spawn was recruited by the armies of Hell to lead an invading army, but ends up becoming a superhero instead.

But the devil is fine with that too, because every villain Spawn kills swells his army of evil with another soldier.

Firebreather: Duncan Rosenblatt doesn't want to follow in his father's enormous footsteps as king of the Kaiju.

Genesis from the X-Menwho is a clone from Apocalypse has turn out this partly because of his very superman style upbringing in a virtual reality partly because he doesn't know who he is. so far.

Also, Kurt/Nightcrawler, who is the son of the villainous Mystique and (despite widespread Fanon Discontinuity) the demon Azazel. Aside from being a superhero, he has also continually thought about becoming a Catholic priest.

A mini-series "Magneto" was about Joseph pretending to be Magneto so he could make Magneto's Acolytes renounce their project, which would kill one million humans. At this time, Joseph himself believes he is an amnesiac Magneto.

Marvel 2099 had Sam Fisk, disgusted by his grandfather Wilson (The Kingpin) and his life of crime, discover he has inherited the legacy. Sam politely tells the legacy to get lost and becomes the new Daredevil.

In both The Shadow Wars (and the Pony POV Series from which it was derived), the Cosmic Concept of Discord incarnated himself among Ponies (as a Draconequus Avatar) to bring about their destruction. But he spent the first twenty years among Ponies who treated him kindly, shaping his surface personality into one of benevolence. Though this was not enough to prevent his Start of Darkness, even after Awakening, Discord remained sufficently imbued with Pony values that he came to regret his own evil actions, and yearns for love and friendship. In The Shadow Wars, he seems to be making a slow but definite Heel–Face Turn. The jury's still out on his ultimate alignment in the Pony POV Series.

Although not outright stated, it is heavily implied in the film that The Iron Giant was created for the purpose of destroying planets with the amount of weaponry built into him. A deleted scene confirmed it with flashbacks. He fits in, in a symbolic way, because he ultimately rejects this path.

Films — Live-Action

The cruddy TV movie sequel to Rosemary's Baby has Andy be pretty apathetic about being the Antichrist.

Christine York in End of Days was raised from birth by Satanists to be Satan's bride. Unfortunately for them, they didn't drill this into her head from day one, instead raising her as a normal upper middle-class American girl. When the wedding day approaches, she understandably rejects the proposition.

Inverted in Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker is implied to be created by a Sith Lord in order to wipe out the Jedi. The Jedi discover him and believe he's the Chosen One who's supposed to destroy the Sith, but he ultimately chooses not to (out of love) and instead destroys the Jedi, then (again because of love) chooses to destroy the Sith. The oddest prediction turns out to be the most accurate, that he would 'bring balance to the Force' by making both sides start again.

Boxer from Southland Tales, who for most of the film is suggested to be the Messiah, and tries twice to save the bystanders when he realizes the real one is about to kill him.

Literature

In Canon Press's Supergeddon, a parody of the Left Behind series, The Antichrist suffers amnesia after his mortal head wound and becomes an evangelist, with the Captain Ersatz version of the Tribulation Force trying to convert him back to Team Evil so the end of the world can proceed as planned. Yeah, it's that kind of book.

Adam of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens. He's less Anti Antichrist and more just good old-fashioned ignorance of his destiny for most of the story, but when he awakens, rather than bringing about the Apocalypse, he decides he really prefers the world the way it is.

Instead of becoming evil incarnate, he became humanity incarnate — which throughout the whole book is pointed out as being far nobler than any angel can be, and far eviller than any demon.

In the end, the main angel characters conclude that this was actually All According to Plan on God's part; a ludicrous number of coincidences neither faction was responsible for had to take place for it to happen.

Laura of the Betsy the Vampire Queen books (who's also the title character's half-sister) consciously chooses to "rebel" against her mother, Satan, by being the biggest do-gooder Pollyanna she can be. She also hates using her powers, even in a good cause, considering it "giving in".

Ultimately subverted following Satan's death, when she took the throne as part of the circumstances surrounding the event and ended up being just like her mother.

Merlin Satanspawn of Simon Green's Nightside series was born of the devil to be The Antichrist, but he "refused the honor". Which isn't to say he's a nice guy by any definition, just that he's not his father's guy.

Sam Linnfer from Catherine Webb's Waywalkers is literally Satan, shunned by gods, angels and humans alike for millennia. His divine power is immensely powerful and destructive but in the end he uses it to save the universe, almost at the cost of his own existence. And people still hate him.

Magiere of The Saga of the Noble Dead is a dhampir, born of human and vampire (with a little help from an Evil Sorcerer) to be the general of an army of undead that would sweep the world of life in accordance with the designs of an Eldritch Abomination. Mercifully, she just wants to be left alone and has no intention of pursuing her destiny, though various forces try to either rope her into it or destroy her to stop that from happening.

In Son of Rosemary — a direct sequel to the Rosemary's Baby novel, hence unrelated to the film sequel above — Satan-sired baby Andy has grown up to run a global charitable foundation, and claims to be struggling to cancel out his evil side by doing good. Descendents of the cult from the first book seek to undermine his attempts to Screw Destiny and be a good man. In the end, his mother wakes up in 1965, to find that her child's conception and entire life were All Just a Dream. It's implied that Andy pushed the Reset Button on the world, re-writing history, once his full powers as the Antichrist manifested, so he wouldn't have to bring on the apocalypse.

The Star Wars Expanded Universe gives us a double subversion in the form of Jacen Solo, son of Han and Leia Solo. Jacen trained as a Jedi under his uncle, and he grew into a pacifist at the end of the Vong war. But he started walking a dark path after a five-year journey to learn more about the Force, and he eventually became a Sith. Jacen initially didn't like the idea of becoming a Sith, but he embraced his identity as the one to remake the galaxy more as time went on, even after all his family started leaving him. He ultimately went back into Anti Antichrist territory to rescue his girlfriend and their daughter from the Empire, but before he could, his sister, Jaina, killed him. His family's safe.

Harry Potter is a subversion. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, it was initially suspected that Harry was the Heir of Slytherin due to an incident where he revealed that he could speak in Parseltongue when trying to stop a snake from attempting to attack a fellow student. This caused even Harry to wonder if he is indeed related to Salazar Slytherin, and thus the Heir of Slytherin. Harry rejects the evil path that his heritage would be expected to bring. However, he is not the Heir. Dumbledore reveals that Harry was not actually a direct relative of Slytherin (the real reason he could speak in Parseltongue was because the same event where Voldemort's attempt to murder Harry backfired also resulted in a part of himself being transferred to Harry, which included Parseltongue). The actual Heir of Slytherin was Tom Riddle, who was a student of Hogwarts fifty years prior and, more importantly, the person who became Lord Voldemort.

In the final book, this turns out to be an apparent double subversion, as it turns out that Harry and Voldemort are each descended from one of the three Peverell brothers. As such, though they are likely several generations removed, Harry and Voldemort are unknowningly distantCOUSINS. Hints at this are laid out at least as far back as Half Blood Prince, which sees Marvolo Gaunt blatantly mention the "Peverell coat of arms", and indicate that it at one point belonged to Slytherin or to someone related to him. Gaunt was very proud of his relation to Slytherin at the very least. The Peverell coat of arms (actually a symbol for The Deathly Hallows) actually indicates that the Peverells did actually own said objects. While nobody knows if the brother who had gotten the Wand from Death had any children, we know that two of them did, and that each passed down their Hallows along the family bloodlines: The Resurrection Stone and the Invisibility Cloak of Death each wound up in the hands of direct descendants of these two brothers at least up until Marvolo's time, as he still possessed it. Presumably after his death the ring ended up in the hands of his son Morfin. At that point, Voldemort got hold of his ancestor's heirloom without ever knowing what he actually had after murdering his uncle. The other wound up in Harry's hands and he ultimately gained mastery of all three. This would have made him 'Master of Death' which sounds like it might be something akin to an anti-christ itself. And Harry rejects this as much as he rejected the idea of being the heir of Slytherin. Unlike Harry, Voldemort fully embraced the idea. However due to their very distant relationship, Harry actually could be considered to be an heir to Slytherin, though not necessarily the heir that would open the Chamber. Technically, he did do so, but he did it in order to rescue Ginny from Voldemort. Though Harry realizes his connection to the brother who originally owned his cloak, he never seems to put that together with his distant relation to Voldemort, since the Gaunts, and later Voldemort himself, are also descended from the Peverells. Voldemort, who knew nothing of the legend of the Hallows, never even has the issue cross his mind. So on one hand, we have the anti-anti-christ (Harry, Master of Death, who could have been a possible Heir of Slytherin due to his distant relation to the man), and on the other, the anti-christ (Voldemort, who legitimately was and embraced being the Heir of Slytherin). The fact that this ends up being revealed as a Family Feud, despite neither side knowing it, makes the situation that much stranger.

The Chronicles of Narnia has Puzzle the donkey in the last book, who got duped into impersonating Aslan as part of a plot to manipulate the Narnians' faith. Since Aslan is literally the form Jesus takes in Narnia, this makes Puzzle effectively the Antichrist. But as mentioned before, Puzzle was duped; he was a pawn in the plan of Shift the ape (the actual Antichrist figure in the book). when Puzzle realizes the full implications of what he's doing, he stops impersonating Aslan immediately, joins the heroes, and ends up making peace with Aslan.

Darren from The Saga of Darren Shan, learned from Lady Evanna, that in the future either he'll become the Lord of Shadows, destroyer of the human world, or Lord of The Vampaneze will, depending on which one of them kills the other. At the end of the final book, Darren managed to leathally wound the Lord of Vamapaneze, his Evil Former Friend Steve. After learning that Mr. Tiny was both of their fathers, and he was the one who set everything up simply For the Evulz, Darren gouged and let the dying Steve kill him, saving the future from Lord of the Shadows.

Nyroc from Guardians Of Gahoole, son of Kludd and Nyra. He was trained all his life to be a Pure One and hate the Guardians Of Ga'Hoole, especially Soren, and eventually destroy them. But he goes on a journey and sees Nyra kill his best friend, he rejects the Pure Ones altogether and joins the Guardians by becoming their king. Oh, and he changed his name to Coryn.

This gets played with several times in Skulduggery Pleasant. At different points, both Valkyrie and Lord Vile are proclaimed by the Necromancers to be their messiahs, or Death Bringers, destined to end death forever. Neither of them show any interest in fulfilling this role (for Valkyrie, the price was too high; for Vile, ending death was the absolute last thing he wanted to do) which necessitated the Necromancers finding a third. In a darker example, there's also Darquesse, who is adopted by the Remnants as their own dark messiah due to several visions of her destroying the planet, only to discover that yes, destroying the planet means them as well.

In the Starlight And Shadows trilogy, the evil drow goddess Lolth chooses the priestess Liriel Baenre to be her champion, who will carry the dark magic of the drow to the surface world and allow them to subjugate all other races. Liriel, however, has no desire for conquest, simply seeking to explore strange foreign lands; and once she learns of her goddess's intentions, she begins struggling to break free of Lolth's influence.

The Shanshu Prophecy says Angel will play a pivotal role in the end times, and be rewarded with humanity - but isn't explicit on which side he'll be fighting on. At the start of Angel, the idea of Angel willingly cooperating with the Senor Partners seems unthinkable. By the end of Season Four, Angel has darkened enough and his circumstances have gotten hazy to the point where he does join them. According to the comics, the jury's still out on whether the Shanshu prophecy spells doom for mankind in general. Wesley's father, Roger Wyndam-Pryce (or at least a close facsimile thereof) warned that Angel is "more dangerous than you realize."

Connor. It was touch and go there for a while, but he ultimately rebels against Jasmine. The only problem is that doing so leaves the poor kid mired in nihilistic, homicidal despair.

This is what Brother Justin on Carnivŕle starts out as. Eventually he embraces his nature as the "creature of Darkness". Ben Hawkins' father, Henry Scudder, was the previous creature of Darkness and a more straight example of this trope, fighting against his nature until the end.

Sam from Supernatural. He certainly didn't want to lead a demon army against humankind, but he was intended to, and defied that fate despite what most characters expected. Too bad he was part of an overarching plot where he had been infected with demon blood due to a deal before he was born, chosen aeons before to set the Devil free and to act as his physical vessel during the End of Days, and set up so that his efforts to prevent the Apocalypse using demon-blood-born powers actually caused the prelude to Apocalypseand released Lucifer from his Cage. Acquiescing to being possessed by Lucifer just so he could gain control of his body long enough to throw both of theminto the Cage, Sam managed to avert the Apocalypse and the final battle to defeat Lucifer that would raze the world. Job well done.

Another example is the child Jesse, who actually is the Antichrist. He's really an overall nice kid, if just slightly creepy. Sure, he made urban myths come true, but he wasn't actually trying to do that, and he certainly didn't mean to kill anyone. He also turned Castiel into a little toy figurine, but that was only in self defense. He almost goes over to the demons, but does hear out the Winchesters' side of the story before doing so. He also voluntarily goes into hiding in order to protect his adopted parents.

Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager counts as this, since her liberation by Janeway was actually a part of a larger plan by the collective to assimilate humanity. By the time this plan is supposed to be put in effect, Seven no longer identifies with the Borg, and refuses to help.

From Reaper, the presumed spawn of Satan is fairly depressed to learn that it's his apparent destiny to end the world. He takes comfort from the fact that he's not really all that good at anything, so he'll probably suck at that, too. Subverted in that Sam is not the only son of the Devil. Satan's been around a long time, and has a lot of kids. And he's disappointed in each and every one of them.

But oddly enough the Devil does seem to be proud of Sam most of the time, even when Sam stands up to him.

Word of God says he's not the son of Satan. His father is a demon who made a deal with the Devil to become (mostly) human (which is why he doesn't die: the Devil can't transform him completely), and Satan keeps him close because while Sam could be the Antichrist, he's also afraid of him. As a half-human, half-demon child, Sam can bring him down. So the closeness is because Lucifer wants to keep an eye on him and make sure he becomes the Antichrist instead of the Devil's downfall. This ignores the fact that Sam has a little brother, but then he did get Cousin Chucked after 2 episodes.

This is the premise of Point Pleasant. Christina is protected from daddy's evil by her mother, her foster family and a hot Catholic priest.

In another, older series, two youths were unfortunately were subjected to "surgery", because they were chosen to become the leader of an evil cult. With the help of his father, one of them manages to escape, and decides to fight them as well as his so-called destiny. This is the story of Kotaro Minami, or, better yet, Kamen Rider Black.

Vlad from Young Dracula is heralded as the Chosen One of vampires, and wants nothing more than to be human, or at least have humans and vampires living side by side.

Mythology

In some stories Merlin (yes, that Merlin) wasthe Antichrist (rumor has it he's half demon, anyway). Instead of destroying the world, he became good and decided to help some guy become the King of Britain instead.

Merlin's mother was raped/seduced by either the Devil or some random demon, but she had Merlin baptized as soon as he was born. This relieved him of his Antichrist status but still let him keep his nifty magical powers. Since Medieval Christianity generally thought any sort of power must come from either God or Satan, this story explained how Merlin performed his magical acts without being a saint.

Tabletop Games

The Lucifuge faction from Hunter: The Vigil are a group made up of exactly 666 descendants of Satan, who use their innate abilities to fight supernatural monsters. Including relatives who decided to work for Dad.

It's always possible for an Abyssal or Infernal Exalted to defy the will of their respectivemasters and do the right thing. Unfortunately, this tends to bite them in the ass — Abyssals gain Resonance for adopting mortal trappings, and must bleed it off by adopting the trappings of death (e.g. sleeping in crypts, performing funerary rites) lest it explode and kill everyone close to them, and Infernals build Torment that can only be bled off by doing villainous things such as monologuing, sticking people in death traps, etc.

Their Charms are not an inherent function of their Exaltation, but rather derive directly from their Yozi masters. This means that the Infernals have direct influence from their masters... but the relationship goes both ways, and if an Infernal developed their own Charm set that generally fell within their master's purview, there's a possibility they could change their master as well.

The Heresy Charm set has shown up. One can only imagine the look on the Ebon Dragon's face when he realizes the pawns of his master plan have discovered a way to sever all ties to the fetters of Hell.

There is the Devil-Tiger option. Shattering all the control methods, feeble as they are, and transending into what is essentially a Primordial Mark 2 while retaining the power of the Exaltation. The Ebon Dragon's reaction when he realizes he made himself OBSOLETE will be priceless.

Ryoji from Persona 3. Turns out he has no choice in the matter, but that doesn't mean he wants to do it.

Raspberyl from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice is a demon delinquent. In other words, she's flaunting the rules of what a demon should be by being good to people, attending classes, etc. because she wants to rebel against the status quo for its own sake. It's all about getting a horrified reaction from her Card CarryingWannabe peers.

Zero from the Mega Man X and Zero series was originally intended by Dr. Wily to be the scourge of humanity that would destroy civilization. He instead becomes one of mankind's greatest defenders, and, ultimately and ironically, the one who brought true peace to the world. Omega later represents what Dr. Wily fully envisioned Zero to be.

It should be noted, however, that the virus he happened to bring with him wasn't so nice. It infects reploids and turns them into mavericks, and even infects humans (Not sure on how that works). Even if he himself is a good guy he's still responsible for what must have added up to billions of deaths, over a hundred years of wars and fighting, and The End of the World as We Know It.

In Fire Emblem Awakening, your player character is the mortal shell that carries the Fell Dragon Grima. Or rather, it will be; he took over your body in an alternate timeline, then came back in time to make sure Lucina doesn't interfere with fate. However, even once knowing your purpose from birth, you still stay true to your friends and refuse to give in to Grima.

Eon from the early Playstation RPG The Granstream Saga is the reincarnation of his world's Satan, the "Mah Oh", from the previous version of the world. However, being adopted by the Old Hermit, he grows up good and just and defeats the current "Mah Oh".

While not quite Satan, you are kind of given this role in Baldur's Gate.

Both Baltazhar and Imoen share it (given that they share a father with you), though with major variations. The second does it best, since she's just good, and not tricked into Knight Templar actions that will backfire.

Zidane from Final Fantasy IX is revealed as The Antichrist late in the game, born for the sole purpose of spreading destruction on Gaia. He just taunts his creator at first, but said creator temporarily reverts him into what he "should" have been by removing Zidane's soul. He gets better; encouragement from his friends somehow snaps him out of it, by pointing out all the not-antichristy things he's done to help them.

To a certain degree, Kuja qualifies as well, if what Mitoko states in the ending is anything to go by.

Final Fantasy X has Sin, who was actually the last Final Aeon, and a guardian before that - in this case, Tidus' father Jecht. Although Sin can't be controlled, Jecht fights his role as best as he can, and encourages Tidus to kill him in order to save the world.

In the tragically-underexposed PAL-only PSX Konami-Atlus survival horror game Hell Night (Dark Messiah in Japan), the hero, a nebbishy underdog salaryman, discovers that he is in fact the reincarnation of the long-lost soul of the royal prince of the invading aliens, who was killed when their mother ship crashed on earth millenia ago, and that the monster which has been chasing him for the entirety of the game is actually his reanimated original body which has been seeking to reunite with its spirit. He turns his back on his former existence as the eponymous Dark Messiah of the title, and chooses to continue living as a human, even if it does mean remaining a "weak, pathetic, chaotic, and meaningless being".

Emerl from Sonic Battle is a Gizoid, a robot designed to mimic any combat technique he sees, and is able to do so with terrifying efficiency (he quickly outclasses the rest of the cast). He was considered to be the Ultimate Lifeform before Shadow and was the strongest of his Gizoid brethren according to Sonic Chronicles.Upon obtaining all seven Chaos Emeralds he's supposed to annihilate civilization. He was also raised by the good guys and slowly mimics bits of each of their personalities as well — the result is a lovable Nice Guy who calls Amy "Mom", helps out around Tails's lab, ribs Knuckles for being dense, and is fiercely protective of his friends, most notably Cream.

And then Eggman blows it all by using an extremely powerful weapon to usurp control. This causes Emerl to go mad with power, having copied Eggman's superweapon, capable of destroying the planet and stars. In the end, Sonic has to kill Emerl.Expect to cry.

The Legend of Dragoon has the Black Monster, but she's only killing infants to stop the real Antichrist. To explain, you must realize that every one of the 108 races is born from a fruit in the Tree of Life. The 108th fruit, the Virage Embryo, destroys all life and starts the cycle over. Naturally, your party also includes the Virage Embryo.

The Law/Amane ending in Devil Survivor has the main character obtain the title of King of Bel in the same way as you do in the Chaos ending, except his first act upon obtaining it is to bow down to God and command all his demons to stop the War on Heaven. The ending claims that you go on to unite humanity as Messianic Archetype, and playing the Updated Re-release adds an additional day that shows the main character trying to make humans willingly atone and become better people.

Solid Snake, although technically not created to destroy the world, was created for a nonetheless similarly sinister purpose: Initially to replace Big Boss should he leave the organization, and finally to kill Big Boss and thus cement The Patriots' control over the world. Eventually, he turns against The Patriots and ultimately saves the world, more or less.

Marcus from Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas is a lighter version of this. He was created as a super-soldier for the Master's army during Fallout. After the Master was defeated, the army crumbled. Now he's arguably the highest-profile person in the Fallout world advocating for a peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans, instead of serving as an officer in a genocidal army.

In Sands of Destruction, Kyrie was supposed to be the one to end the world; however, this is presented as a natural progression of things to those outside the system, only problematic to the mortals who happen to inhabit the world. Unfortunately, he's really not into the whole doom-and-death thing (and is very attached to at least one of the inhabitants of said world), and is desparate to find a way to control himself, even including suicide. That doesn't quite stick, though, but he does eventually learn to control his powers to the point that not only is he able to avoid destroying the world, but is even able to correct the problems plaguing it.

Yu Gi Oh BAM drops several hints that you are this. You have amnesia, every villain wants to capture and recruit you, and your BAM skills quickly become the stuff of legends. You also engage in some unscrupulous activity for good causes, like hacking into the villainous Marik's bank account.

Blazblue: Protagonist Ragna the Bloodedge is the reincarnation of an Eldritch Abomination that nearly destroyed the world almost a century earlier in the setting, with its remains being used as his new replacement right arm. The second game reveals his destiny to be the harbinger of destruction and the catalyst to revive the beast to destroy the world. This makes him the enemy of nearly the entire cast. Naturally, he has a Screw Destiny attitude and some Character Development helps push him on a different path towards becoming the "Protector of the Azure". By the third game however, fate seems to have forced his hand and put him on the path of destruction against his will.

Web Comics

The title character from the Spanish web comic CROWLEY is one of these.

In Bruno the Bandit, the saintly hermit and former pope in the Church of Ailix Carlin is one of the only truly 'good' people in this Crapsack World. He's also the Son of Xu'buxx, the local version of Satan. Playing out the most literal version of the trope, he basically started rebelling against his satanic upbringing as a teenager, and wound up as a saint. His 'dad' tries a lot of tricks to make him come back to the side of evil, but so far without luck... The real kicker? Carlin's greatest desire is to redeem his father and bring him into the light of Ailix, the settings version of God/Jesus. He already did it with his mother, a high priestess of Xu'Buxx, on her deathbed.

Damian from Zoophobia (no, not Damien) isn't too interested in ruling hell. He'd rather just hang out with his friends at school and torment his cousin Jack.

Web Original

In The Gamer's Alliance, the ambitious black mage Jemuel is brought back to life as a revenant on behalf of the Underworld in order to allow the dead to invade the Land of the Living. However, Jemuel breaks free from the lich Drishnek's control and does some soul-searching, and he chooses to openly defy Drishnek and the Underworld and renounces some of his villainous ways because he has found kinship among the citizens of the Magicracy of Alent and doesn't want to plunge the world into darkness.

Mystic detective and monster-hunter Jonathan Brimstone from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe. His father is Lucifer Morningstar. His mother a drug-addicted cultist. According to prophecy, he is destined to overthrow all goodness and light in his father's name. Instead, he decided to give his father the bird and fight evil.

Carmilla (Sara Waite), in the Whateley Universe. She's supposed to be The Kellith, grand-daughter of Shub-Niggurath, who will wipe the Earth of humans and repopulate it with her spawn. She doesn't want to. She's already fought The Kellith to the death.

Her dad would logically be Anti-Satan. Or just regular Satan since he's rebelling against his own father and Co., this time for humanity.

Western Animation

Damien from South Park starts off embracing his Son-of-Satan persona, but eventually it's revealed that he just wants friends, acceptance, and stability.

On Ugly Americans, Callie is the half-human daughter of the current Devil, but sort of ping-pongs back between this trope and a more traditional Anti Christ, apparently sort of confused about which she should be following. It's implied that she's purposefully trying to bring the Apocalypse on slower than necessary (which her father actually is okay with) and describes the End of Days as "more of a gray area" as far as demons are concerned.

Later episodes showed that the demons considered the end of days to simply include the extinction of all human life. Since there's plenty of non-human life and even non-human sapient/sentient life on Earth (indeed, in Ugly Americans it seems about 1/3rd of the Earth's population is supernatural), it actually is a bit grey.

In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), Orko accidentally summons an ancient demon named Daimar, in the form of a harmless-looking cute little creature. They spend the day playing together, but Daimar then spins a cocoon and emerges as a giant monster reminiscent of Chernobog from Fantasia and sets about opening a gate to "the Dark Dimension" to destroy Eternia, as he says he is predestined to do. He-Man, bless his heart, talks him out of it, reminding him of the friendship he formed with Orko, and telling him that he has free will and doesn't have to destroy anything if he doesn't want to. Daimar does a Heel–Face Turn and leaves in peace.

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